A comparative analysis of graduation rates of African American students at historically Black colleges and universities and predominantly White institutions

Abstract

Retention, persistence and graduation rates are not new issues in higher education. Early research by Tinto (1975), Bean (1980), and Pascarella (1980) illustrated the importance of retention and the different methods by which it can be analyzed. These theories, although widely cited and read, account for less than 30% of the variance in departure rates (Astin, 1993). Much of the retention research on African American students has focused on utilizing dominant retention theories to investigate Predominantly White Institutions (PWIs) and Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) in attempts to explain or explore the relationship between these students and the institutions (Cabrera, Nora et al., 1999; Person, 1990; Person and Christensen, 1996). The purpose of this study is to push the boundaries of the understanding of African American student retention. The expansion of these boundaries is accomplished in three ways: (1) providing institutions information to help facilitate the graduation of African American students, (2) providing a cross-sectional analysis of demographic characteristics of students at Historically Black Colleges and Universities versus Predominantly White Institutions, and (3) offering new perspectives on retention of African American students utilizing the institution as the unit of analysis. The goals of this project were accomplished by utilizing African American student culture as a lens for viewing the results of this research, a current retention model applied to African American students from a unique set of matched institutions.